ML370 Upgrade Using Image.

[neil barker]

Upgrading 50+ ML370 servers to Windows Server 2003 from Win2K. The servers each have a SmartArray 5302 controller, set up with two arrays, RAID 1 system and RAID 10 for data. Have created an image of system drive in a test server (exactly same as production servers.) Removed imaged disks from test server and placed in live server and get a message at boot up that states the array does not recognise any logical drives and that some or all drives have changed position. Remove the data drives and leave in just the imaged system drives and the system boots OK (have to press F2 after warning - can't remember what it said). Server 03 boots fine. Shutdown server and put data disks back and the server boots fine and boot screen shows presence of 2 logical drives - though there is a message sating data maybe lost. Server 03 boots fine and all data is available. Question: Can anybody tell me what is going on? What I want to do is produce some concise instructions and build the disks for our Server Support staff to go to the remote sites and do this work as quickly as possible to reduce downtime.

[Martin Breidenbach · Accepted solution]

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The RAID configuration is also stored on the hard drives. After replacing the RAID 1 system drives the RAID controller gets conflicting information from the RAID1 and RAID 10 hard drives.

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Now the hard drives contain consistent information and the RAID controller accepts it.

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The RAID controller sees an additional logical drive and adds it to its configuration.

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Server 01 - test server
Server 02 - previous RAID1/RAID10 server
Server 03 - another server like Server 02 ?

You did the same with Server 03 as you did with Server 02 ? Server 02 behaved as I'd expect it.